Wedding Cake With Football Coming Out Of Side

I have a customer who wants her 4-tier wedding cake to have a football coming out of the side of her 3rd tier. Although it's only 1/2 of the football, I can't figure out how to support the football. Can someone help me?

Does the football have to be cake? Can it be styrofoam covered with modeling chocolate? That may make it easier to support. And if you were to put it "in" at an angle you could also use a long skewer to support it.

I had planned for the football to be cake. I hadn't thought using styrofoam. I will check with the bride and see if she will accept styrofoam. If I give her two price differences maybe she will choose the styrofoam. Lol! I had planned to use a skewer anyway, but I didn't know if that would give enough support. Thanks so much for your comment, it really gave me some additional thoughts.

That's exactly the cake she sent me. It appears that their football was real cake and they give no hint on how they did that. I have sent them an email to see if they would be willing to share information.

I heard back from the company, but no luck. They said "Unfortunately, because this cake photo went "viral", we have kept this cake structure a secret, as we continue to use the same principles for other cakes." I'll keep working to see if I can come up with something. I think your idea is probably the one I will use. I'll let you know. Thanks again.

AMaybe they have some proprietary technique or maybe they don't. Maybe they don't want to announce to the world that they used foam or rice krispies. It could be hollow gumpaste. Since the ball is disproportionately large, in my opinion, this may point to it having been molded over a toy ball or that they obtained a football shaped foam piece rather than sculpting to size. In my opinion they had a whole bunch of gorgeous cakes, but I wasn't loving that one.

Of course it could also just be sculpted cake. I'm just saying there are a lot of ways to do this. I would also guess that if they want to keep it secret, it may have been super easy.

OK after a little more obsessing...I know the football is carved cake, but what if the tier is a dummy tier. And it's less than 1/2 of the football sticking out. So maybe with the football covered in ganache then fondant with a few really well placed dowels, it can stay like that? or you carve out a section of the dummy cake so there's more football in the inside to stabilize the part that's sticking out. Did that even make sense?

It does make sense that since it says next to the cake, "Oh yes....we carved that football, to real size...thanks to my best carver...David" Still not clear that it's definitely cake and not foam, but it sounds they were implying it was cake.

It's a cooler cake than I originally thought - here'sa picture with people next to it

It does make sense that since it says next to the cake, "Oh yes....we carved that football, to real size...thanks to my best carver...David" Still not clear that it's definitely cake and not foam, but it sounds they were implying it was cake.

It's a cooler cake than I originally thought - here'sa picture with people next to it

What if the top half of the ball is cake, on a cake board, and the bottom half is shaped RKT or such? That middle tier is double-height- maybe the board is all one piece in the tier, then sticking out and supporting the football.

The mystery deepens.....the ball definitely is just half of a ball, if you look at a close up of the picture, you can see the outline of it and it does not go into the cake....I'm still thinking its styrofoam now like

What if the top half of the ball is cake, on a cake board, and the bottom half is shaped RKT or such? That middle tier is double-height- maybe the board is all one piece in the tier, then sticking out and supporting the football.

Keep us posted!

That's exactly how I would do it. It would take a little planning ahead to get the sizes right, but it wouldn't be hard to do. The middle cake board on the taller tier on the cake would just have to extend over to include the board for the football, and that would be enough weight on the cake side to keep the football there. The football could very well be made out of rice krispies, too, just to make the whole thing lighter. Just becasue someone acts all mysterious about how they did it doesn't mean it was complicated! It usually just means they used something other than cake and don't want to admit it. ;)

What if the top half of the ball is cake, on a cake board, and the bottom half is shaped RKT or such? That middle tier is double-height- maybe the board is all one piece in the tier, then sticking out and supporting the football.

Keep us posted!

That's exactly how I would do it. It would take some planning to get the sizes right but it wouldn't be hard to do. The board for the taller tier on the cake would just extend over to support the football. The weight of the top tiers should be enough to keep the football up, but I'd be willing to bet that the football was made from rice krispies and they just don't want to admit it. Just because someone acts all mysterious about how they did something doesn't mean there's a trick to it, it just means that they used something other than cake and don't want to admit it ;)

i love that cake--it's the crumbs sprinkled around under the football that really set it off--

just an aside here--but ever see the golf commercial where the ball lands on a beautiful wedding cake (peach colored flowers/accents if memory serves) and the pro comes in and blasts the ball and just creams the cake--very cool commercial!

You guys are so wonderful! I had given some thought to the football being rice krispie treat as well. That would make it lighter. However, while I noticed the middle tier was taller, I assumed it was to accommodate the football and maintain serving pieces. I hadn't thought of it being the styrofoam!!!!

I think together we are going to work this thing out!!!! Thanks so much.

Jazzy3190 and Rosie93095 - Information on the cake makes me believe it is all cake. Dummy cakes wouldn't interest my customer nor satisfy me. For a display it would work wonderfully. Thanks for your input.

Jazzy3190 and Rosie93095 - Information on the cake makes me believe it is all cake. Dummy cakes wouldn't interest my customer nor satisfy me. For a display it would work wonderfully. Thanks for your input.

What's the point of that?

And that's not what it said. They didn't say it was all cake, just that it was sculpted. I'm pretty darn sure only part of that is cake, it could be all cake, but not soft servable cake. Fwiw, RKT and foam are sculptable, too. Foam is lightest and what I'd use.

I'm pretty sure your customer wouldn't want a crumbly mess, either. We are limited to what's possible in the physical world and we have to explain what can actually be done to our customers and not promise impossible things.

Ok so this may have been mentioned but....what if the middle tier had the cake separated by cake drums the same exact size of the cake.( like 2 of them alternating with cake) Then you carve the football out of RKT and the supports/dowels are stuck in the cake drums. I think that is how I would do it. I can't wait until you make this cake!!!!

Ok so this may have been mentioned but....what if the middle tier had the cake separated by cake drums the same exact size of the cake.( like 2 of them alternating with cake) Then you carve the football out of RKT and the supports/dowels are stuck in the cake drums. I think that is how I would do it. I can't wait until you make this cake!!!!

Something similar has been mentioned, and the bride has said she doesn't mind if the football is RKT or styrofoam. I'm going to try the RKT first and see how that works with cake before I go to styrofoam. I want the tier to be cake, but I may have to go to a dummy cake. I'll be sure to let all of you know how it turns out. The wedding is in May so that gives me time to do "trial and error". Thanks so much to everyone for your interest and ideas!

Nothing yet, unfortunately. I tried making the football out of rkt but still came out heavy. This week I'll be testing by pushing that tier to the back to give a little more "ledge" to dowel and place the football on and. I'm still working at it, but time is starting to run out!!! Still open to any ideas. Thanks, and pray for me!!! lol